


define thug.

by algessni



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Bombs, Guns, It’s Literally Kaldur Driving while Black, Police, Racism, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 20:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18763606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/algessni/pseuds/algessni
Summary: Kaldur’ahm decides to help Nightwing out after he heard from a little birdie (no pun intended) that a bomb had been planted in some cereal toy coming from Lex Luthor’s brand. He gets an unprecedented delay.





	define thug.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m black, okay. To be real with yall, I just wanted somebody to write it because he’s “black” but he’s not fully human and not technically American despite being an American hero. I wanted to visualize how Kal would deal with this (black) American horror show/experience. Of course, he’d have no fear because he’s from underwater, he’d just be mad confused, and /blown/. But somebody had to do it. so. bloop. (it's probably trash tho oop)

  
  
Despite the overarching dangers of metahuman trafficking and experimentation, Kaldur’ahm still found himself loosely gripping the wheel of one of those overly-convenient trucks that could pass as an unalarming civilian vehicle that the Justice League had laying around.  
  
He was going grocery shopping.  
  
But, to put it into more context, he was doing a favor for Nightwing; chiefly because he brought up the point that they weren’t dealing with a big picture, but rather a colorful mosaic of problems.  
  
Like now. This issue that had sent him to the grocery store at five-something in the morning—with the sun barely peeking its yellow, glowy forehead over the horizon—was a smaller one; but dire nonetheless.  
  
Because small was never really ‘let the police handle it’ small. Never ever.  
  
The Team—which they should really come up with a better name for, it’s been literal _years—_ had received an anonymous tip that there was an explosive watch placed in one of the cereal boxes. Tim, colloquially known as Robin the Third, but not to his face, had traced the cargo truck that was shipping the groceries from the wheat farms way over yonder to processing factories just on the outskirts of the major city.  
  
Funnily enough, these farms were under the eye of kingpin Lex Luthor himself.  
  
Upon this revelation, Superboy had immediately jumped against Lex, suspecting him of some underhanded scheme; which was fair, considering that he was the devil. But the wealthy sociopath was quickly shooed of the suspects’ list because there were too many messy variables and loose ends that didn’t quite match well with his Lex Luthor quota of crime. It wasn’t the Luthor motif. At all.  
  
Plus, what could have been the motive? Everything Lex did was for a gain. What did he possibly gain by blowing up some helpless kids just looking for a toy? That’d ruin his public image, considering the fact that everyone knows him as the philanthropic genius who provides healthy feel-good alternatives to McDonald’s amongst other great things.  It’d also be plain stupid. If Lex were to ruin his own image, he’d simultaneously ruin the Light’s, and those Reach aliens worked too damn hard trying to poison the masses for that type of tactlessness. Maybe someone from within was trying to betray him? That was the best bet so far.  
  
So now, their prime concern was figuring out firstly how to safely disarm and dispose of the WMD, and find out who sent the tip. Kaldur’ahm was no stranger to fish jokes, so he knew all about bait. Why would someone from the inside tip? Yes, whistleblowers exist, but who’d be bold enough to tattletale on someone ready to blow up a city, starting with a child’s face? It’s most likely some idiot who wants to decimate the Justice League headquarters—wrecking the global symbol of peace. Or it could be someone who just wants to incite panic and make it look like the Leaguers couldn’t do their jobs, which is equally as bad.

They _needed_ the public’s trust to function; or else, who were they providing justice for?  
  
They were making a lot of enemies lately.  
  
All because of the Reach.  
  
Kaldur’ahm merged into a street. There was a drone eyeballing the truck overhead that was transmitting live GPS footage through one lens of his sunshades.  
  
This was the most simple recon-recovery mission Kaldur’ahm has ever known. He just had to be the first customer at the grocery store.  
  
He almost laughs, and then he does, a bit breathlessly. His life was kind of an ironic blurb of responsibilities. He went from Aqualad to Aquaman within a span of a few years, a co-founder of the young justice team and now the very _face_ of the Justice League, yet at this moment one of his many super secret missions involves buying out an entire aisle of sugary cereal that panders to little kids who _want_ to become superheroes. Literal young justice.  
  
Yes, the ungodly stack of Batman’s money staring at him from the passenger’s seat only heightens that fact.  
  
Kal drives steadily, not necessarily in a rush because he’s kind of making good time anyway and he likes how simple human technology is to work with. He was used to commanding complicated airships and submarines. Cars were light work. He didn’t even have a real license. Just a false one because both Batman and Superman kept lecturing him on the importance of an alternate identity. And their points were valid. Even if Kal had never made an effort to ever hide his face while decked out in skin-tight wetsuit PPE, he couldn’t do everything under the name ‘Aquaman,’ nor could he use his alternative, ‘Kaldur’ahm of Atlantis.’ So, he adopted the civilian name Jackson Hyde, which Garfield had made up because he thought the word ‘Hyde’ was _supremely aster._  
  
Pulling him out of his thoughts were the wonderfully screechy, whiny sounds of police sirens and the blare of patriotically red, white, and blue lights that made his head momentarily feel like a spike had been hammered through it.  
  
Kaldur’ahm pulled over carefully, wondering what the officer could want. Maybe he’d even be able to help. He could call for the bomb squad or some hazmat specialists.  
  
“Officer,” he greets gently, after rolling down his window. He makes no move to remove his glasses, keeping his eyes trained on what he sees through his lens, rather than the uppity-looking white man before him. There was no malice, he simply had more important things to focus on.  
  
But, to newbie Officer Wilkerson, it looked like he was being dismissive, ignoring his authority, _this_ close to rolling his eyes—which he wasn’t! Still. Rookies hate that.  
  
“License and registration please.”  
  
Kaldur’ahm handed it over, knowing his fake license would easily fly under the radar, but still curious as to why he was being stopped and wasting precious time. “May I ask why?”  
  
“No, you may not.”  
  
Kal quirks a thin, blond brow. “No?”  
  
“Since you want to know so badly, Jack Hyde, you were speeding.”  
  
“It’s Jackson,” Kaldur says smoothly.  
  
“I don’t care what it is, really. You were going five over the limit.”  
  
“I don’t understand the problem here. I wasn’t in a school zone,” he starts. “If you’d please excuse me, sir, I have somewhere to be.”  
  
“With all that money right there? I don’t think so. Step out of the vehicle.”  
  
Now Kaldur lowered his glasses, only to look this man in his eye. The officer was shook upon seeing such a contrast of bronzed brown skin with blueish, seafoam greenish, light aquamarine eyes. He took the blond hair as him being some sort of experimental teen but this was just _different._ It visibly freaked him out.  
  
On top of that, he felt as though he’d seen this kid before. On the news. He was probably one of those petty criminals that were in and out of jail all the time; that’d explain why he looked way too familiar.  
  
But, boy, was he assertive. He was argumentative in such a polite way that the words used took some of the edge and urgency out of his voice. It was there, but dampened.  
  
“Sir, why would I need to exit my vehicle?”  
  
“I said so!” He shouts, catching the young hero off guard for a nanosecond; he has yet to show any fear though. “Get the hell out!”  
  
Kaldur unbuckles his seat belt slowly, clearly not amused and getting increasingly antsy because the truck was getting closer to the store and he had to be the first customer to get all the Luthor-brand cereal so he could grab the watch bomb.

He couldn’t do that the easy way if he had to beat traffic.  
  
It’s times like this where he wishes he were a speedster. Or that they had boom tubes to even _more_ uncanny places like _supermarkets._  
  
He gets out of the car while tapping his foot irksomely, irritated with what he’s seeing. “This is wasting valuable time for my mission,” he notes aloud, specifically for the fed’s ears.  
  
He tenses a little when he sees the man sifting through the bag of Wayne money. He tilts his head to the side, confused.  
  
“Mission?” The copper scoffs. “You got a drug deal to make or something? A heist to orchestrate? Gang summit? Huh, thug? Are you planning to cash in this outrageous amount of money? Explain all this loose change,” he gripes, “you’ve got lying around your car.”  
  
His eyebrows knit together, and he taps the temple of his glasses, shifting the feed to his smartwatch so he can take off the dark shades and look the man in the eye. In that brief second, the short, stubby officer and flicked a gun out on him.  
  
Aquaman’s face falls. With a pistol in his face, pointed between his brows instead of at his leg, his expression is still flat and curt, much like his speech. “I’m—“  
  
“And also explain!” The cop cuts him off unpleasantly with a jab to his chest, with the aforementioned pistol—Kaldur’ahm feels a tingle run through his body since he had poked at one of his bodily marks— “Explain why you have no license plate at the back! That right there is also illegal!”  
  
Speeding was an infraction, and the suspicious amounts of money was just a wild assumption with no leg to stand on.  
  
The license plate thing, however, was valid. Still, Kaldur had to do something a little illegal so that nosy civilians wouldn’t follow him into dangerous situations and possibly get themselves killed because of curiosity.  
  
He explains with simple words. “I’m Aquaman.”  
  
“And I’m Bill Gates,” Wilkerson says shakily and humorlessly.  
  
He was holding the gun like he hadn’t been properly trained and that put fear in Aquaman’s heart. He wasn’t worried for his own safety, he was just in awe that these underprepared people were apart of humanity’s first line of defense against chaos.  
  
He puts his hands up, slowly this time, periodically checking his watch. Once he gets out of this conundrum he can _push it_ to the market, buy out the foodstuff and be on his everlasting way.   
  
He was just irritated because this man really wanted to fight him for some reason. No reason, actually. No justifiable one.  
  
“I really am Aquaman.”  
  
“Aquaman’s Caucasian. He’s a _white_ Atlantean!”  
  
The phrase didn’t even make sense. In Atlantis, skin tones weren’t labeled. They weren’t humans, they were Atlanteans. You were either a pearl or a limestone, poor or rich. Classism, Kaldur was used to and knew of. This, he was not. It was uglier. It was an unsung mix of color discrimination, baseless assumptions, fear,  judgement, and misinformation.  
  
“My king was the previous Aquaman. I am the new one. There was a live ceremony broadcasted worldwide through GBS about six months ago solidifying that fact. I have been sworn into the Justice League ever since then.”  
  
“I don’t believe you. What do you take me for? A fool?”  
  
“I would _like_ to consider you an _ally_ but I don’t think you are being of much assistance now.”  
  
“How old are you?”  
  
“Twenty-three. Soon.”  
  
“So, if you’re in the Justice League, who swore you in?”  
  
The man lived in a secluded bubble and just now moved into the big city, trying to make a name for himself, and possibly raise a family, Kaldur’ahm profiles.  
  
“The previous Aquaman, Superman,” his minds flashes to Conner as the powerful name escapes his lips. “Wonder Woman, and Batman.”  
  
The cop laughs heartily, and Kaldur fears he’ll actually shoot himself in the foot with his own incompetence.

He doesn’t see what’s so funny. His lower lip juts out slightly, peeved, and feeling a little betrayed. It seemed like the public was losing all trust in him already, and he just started.

  
Drivers whizzing by, likely rushing to work to do their jobs, much like _he_ was trying to do, started rubbernecking. He’s pretty sure he saw a twelve-year-old in the backseat snap a blurry photo on their cell.

  
“Superman and them would never work with the likes of you. Not when you look and behave like a clown, have enough dirty money in your seat to buy a townhouse, and most likely have drug paraphernalia and weapons sewn into your seats.”  
  
“If I sold drugs, I wouldn’t be foolish enough to operate at the crack of dawn on a weekday, no less. I’m telling you, in full honesty, that I am Aquaman.”  
  
The cop kicks him in his torso, irate and apparently more flexible than he looks. Kaldur’ahm, who had admittedly let his guard down against the chatty cop, kneeled at the sharp pain that mirrored the same sensation he felt from the lights.

He had to reject his natural response of restraining the enemy. This wasn’t a villainous henchman, just a prejudice fool who didn’t know what he was doing. At this point, Kaldur would accept a ticket just so he could leave; but not an arrest!

  
“You ain’t Aquaman kid,” the police officer flashes some perfectly spotless handcuffs in his face with an fiendish smile. “Not even Aquaboy would have the type of shit you have in the car. And, oh yeah, I saw the glove compartment.”  
  
This wasn’t even his car, first of all.

It was bought by the League… So it was most likely Bruce’s, technically.

  
Kaldur’ahm had no more time to waste literally on his knees praying for a fool to not get any more foolish. He wasn’t even being cocky or conceited—he was just genuinely surprised that this law enforcement/public safety employee doesn’t recognize him, despite being the one member of a world renown superhero organization that doesn’t actively hide his face.  
  
Make it make sense.  
  
Kaldur’ahm’s skin icons _—tattoos_ is what they’re called above sea level; but that name gets a bad rep—begin glowing as he stands, channeling his energy to borrow water from any nearby lake, river, ocean, stream, or puddle as he promptly splashes it above the cop’s head like someone threw an obese water balloon at him from six stories high.  
  
The fear in his face is bordering terror when he really looks at the pointed eyes, gilled neck, webby fingers of the foreign boy and finally concludes that this is Aquaman. Suddenly, the freakishly light eyes make sense; deep sea darkness requires that.  
  
He scrambles to apologize for wasting his time and fumbles with the handgun, but Kaldur simply tells him to move and shut down the roads.  
  
He switched up quick. Kaldur’ahm still had a feeling he hated his very existence for no reason; he just respected the title, which he could live with. Kaldur’ahm didn’t particularly care if he was liked by strangers; he just cared that he was respected.  
  
“But Mr. Aquaman, sir!”  
  
“Don’t worry about it. Go.”  
  
“Y-Yes sir!”  
  
Kaldur’ahm had approximately ten minutes for a twenty minute trip.  
  
He somehow makes it.  
  
He leaves the store with more boxes of cereal than should be allowed but at least he was the first customer in so nobody saw him look that ridiculously conspicuous. The employee literally got a forklift from behind the store to help load the product.  
  
He brings them back to the Team’s new headquarters, Conner and Megan’s garage.  
  
Kal still feels iffy about them using their _house_ as headquarters but if they like it, he loves it.  
  
He unloads the truck with an interesting story to tell, and as it keeps going along, the swarthy, buff FatherBox kid has a frown that sets deeper and deeper. Dick also looks visibly moodier as Kal relays the anecdote.

Soon Conner, Megan, Dick, Brion, Fred, and MotherBox Violet all started tearing boxes open. Victor watched bitterly from the side; he didn’t like hero work in any way, shape, or form, and he honestly was not to blame for that opinion.

The job was cool but the job also admittedly sucked.

  
Kaldur’ahm had warned the others already about them not knowing whether the bomb was already activated or had yet to be triggered, but there was simply no careful way to play with fire, so he just kept a watchful eye and a stern expression.  
  
Megan simply dumped out the pink, O-shaped cereal onto the concrete floor, keeping a freckled hand out for the watch or a toy. What she wasn’t expecting was a toy watch.  
  
Dick pours out the same thing, a tacky black and blue watch made of plastic, fit for a child’s wrist, analyzing him just as hard as he was analyzing it before he came to the conclusion that the watch in his hand was a just a toy and nothing but a toy.  
  
“Maybe the tip was fake?” Brion suggests after getting an electric blue watch of his own.  
  
“Doubt it. This just means we have to dig.”  
  
“So much for finding a needle in a haystack,” Megan complains, “This is like finding one particular needle in a stack of needles.”  
  
“No kiddin’,” Conner agrees, sifting through the grainy cereal and frowning at the pink sugar dust on his fingers. “Who would do this?”  
  
“A smart rookie with a dumb game plan.” Dick answers, ever so eloquently. “This was a job for the bomb squad, not us... Sorry, Kaldur.”  
  
He shrugs, with a pinched reply, “It’s fine.”  
  
“I’m calling Zatanna. We’ve got no time to waste trying to find _and_ decipher this thing when we don’t even know if it’s on yet.”  
  
“So, Dick, you plan to magic it all away?” Conner asked with a teasing tone, as if he was he elder brother around here.  
  
Nightwing, ever the child, nods swiftly, saying, “Yup,” with a popped P.  
  
Brion inspects the cartoony body of the box,  slowly reading what was on the front. He’s suddenly feeling blessed that they stressed the importance of bilingualism in the Markovian palace, but the gladness was shot down by the stupidity he read. It was just some cheap toy with a target market of little girls and boys ages six to eleven.  
  
“‘You too can be like Jen 10,’” he reads in his sweet accent, “‘Have your own alien-shifting watch, with newer never-before-seen aliens such as Kryptonians and the Reach!’ This is a sham.”  
  
“I found it!” Violet shouts after a while, holding an actual Franck Muller watch with only the very tip of her finger and keeping it an arms-length away from her face. “It’s a _watch_ watch! It’s silver!”  
  
Victor uses that as a perfect time to summon Kaldur’ahm’s attention to have an actual one-on-one with him.  
  
“So, uh, Mr. Aquaman—that’s... that was stupid.” He takes a breath, deepening his already-baritone voice. “Aquaman. What did that police officer do to you? What did he say?”  
  
He didn’t know why the teen was suddenly so invested out of nowhere, but he made a mental note to figure it out eventually.

  
He decided to be honest, finding a white lie to be unnecessary. “He pulled me over for apparently speeding while insinuating that I was a drug dealer. He also said I wasn’t white enough to be the real Aquaman and proceeded to kick me in my stomach. In fact, he did not actually believe I was Aquaman until I doused him with water.”  
  
“I—God. Did he try to arrest you? Was his gun involved?” The boy actually started shaking, anger welling up in his spirit like a shaken soda bottle. His fists balled up and he looks just about ready to cry.  
  
“He was very close to having me cuffed, and yes, he did waggle his gun in my face. It was detrimental to the mission, and annoying,” he admits. “I had to... play it cool.”  
  
Of course Kal didn’t get it. He’s been face-to-barrel with weapons worse than just guns before. He was Aquaman of the Justice League who could take down that one cop with his eyes closed and hands tied; but it wasn’t even about whether or not he could defend himself. It was the implication.  
  
“He could’ve shot you,” Victor seethes through grit teeth, grumbling, “It seemed like he was one step away from calling you the N-word.”  
  
Kaldur’ahm’s expression softens. “He wouldn’t have.”  
  
“You don’t know that...” the teen sighs heavily, “That’s the crazy part. You _don’t_ know that. You can never know with these racist-ass cops.”

  
Kaldur’ahm looks at the younger boy who looks kind of like he could be his brother and feels a pang of _something_ in his chest because he wasn’t expecting such a visceral reaction. The anger and fear was oozing off of the cyborg in waves. It made all his metal parts seemingly vanish, because now he looked vulnerable, a hundred percent human again. Kaldur feels like there’s something he’s missing. Something he should be feeling with the same intensity Victor feels. So now, Kaldur’ahm himself feels like a metal man.  
  
Victor barely knows Kaldur, but it hits way too close to home.  
  
Not even the most super of heroes were safe from discrimination.

Everybody black and everybody brown was a fiend.  
  
That thought alone was soul-crushing.


End file.
